


An Inseparable Knot

by Quazie89



Category: The Simpsons
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-13
Updated: 2019-03-13
Packaged: 2019-11-17 15:24:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18101231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quazie89/pseuds/Quazie89
Summary: Just a little exploration of Edna and Skinner's engagement.





	An Inseparable Knot

Author's note: This takes place before Edna married Ned, which I thought was an odd decision on The Simpsons writers' part, and you might also have to ignore some of the events that took place in the Principal and the Pauper. Also, I know I said it would be awhile before I would write anything again, but I've been going back and watching some of the older episodes, and I never realized before how much I loved the relationship between Edna and Skinner, or just how dark Skinner's past is. He is such a tragic, sympathetic, underrated and underused character, and he is, perhaps, my favorite, maybe my second favorite, after Bart. There was still so much of his past history in Vietnam and his engagement to Edna that needed to be explored and explained, and I attempted to do that with this fic. Anyway, I just had to get a little bit of Edna and Skinner out of my system. I hope you enjoy the story!

An Inseparable Knot

Not for the first time, Edna woke up during the middle of the night to the haunting, unnerving sound of her finance screaming,

She shot up in bed, swerving around to face Seymour, who was sitting up, his thinning, graying hair caked with sweat, which was pouring down his ancient, withered face. His entire body trembled.

"Oh, Seymour, not again," she said, knowing he had been disturbed from his sleep by one of his violent Vietnam flashbacks. She didn't ask him which one it had been, not wanting him to have to go through it again, but they had been becoming more and more frequent of late, and he was starting to worry her. She kept on asking him to go to the doctor but, being so damn stubborn when it came to the matter, he always refused, saying the nightmares always came and went and that he would get over them with time, but Edna didn't believe that anymore than she knew he did. "Am I going to have to force you to go to Doctor Hibbert?" She dared to bring up the subject again.

Seymour shook his head. "No," he said, wiping the tears out of his eyes. "I'm not going to the doctor." Sniffing, he turned to her, his pleading expression desperate. "Please, Edna, no doctors." He grabbed her by the shoulders, shaking her. "Please?"

Edna sighed, shaking her head. "Seymour, you know I'm not going to force you to do anything you don't want to," she said, turning away from him. "I just can't see why you won't go to the doctor." She looked back up at him, clasping his hands in hers."Is it a man thing?" She nodded, satisfied with her own conclusion. "It is a man thing, isn't it?"

"Yes, I mean..." Seymour said, trailing off. "No...that's not what I mean at all..." he sighed, shaking his head. "I just don't know...I don't know what I mean anymore..." He stifled a strangled sob, burying his face in his hands.

"I just wish there was something more I could do for you." Edna said, and grabbed his hand, pulling it away from his face. "I can't stand to see you like this." Shaking her head, she bit her lip, feeling tears run down her face. Her lips began to tremble."You're breaking me heart."

Seymour grabbed her by the arm, pulling it down to her side. "Hey, hey, now," he said, wiping the tears of her eyes. "None of that." He encircled his hands around her waist, pulling her close. "Don't you worry about me." Running his fingers through her pent-up, auburn hair, he rested his head on top of hers, breathing in the scent of the shampoo she had put in her hair that night before going to bed. "I don't want you crying over a tired old man like me."

Burying her face in his chest, she closed her eyes, savoring the soft, comforting feel of his wool sweater against her cheek. "But I do worry about you," she said, sitting up in his lap. "You scare the hell out of me..."

Seymour looked down at her, tilting her chin up. "I'll be okay," he said, cupping her face in his large, coarse, yet gentle hands. "I've lived with this over half of my life, Edna, and I've managed to survive this long." He attempted to give her a reassuring smile, somehow managing to curve his mouth up into a small, tired, crooked grin. "It's not going to go away anytime soon."

Edna sighed, looking up at Seymour. "I know, you're right," she said, running her hands down his drawn, sunken face, trailing her fingers down the deep age lines bracketing his mouth. "You just look so tired…"

Seymour chuckled. "It's that bad, huh?" he asked. "Well, I'm glad to see you still look as beautiful as ever, even at four o'clock in the morning." He rubbed his nose against hers, planting a kiss on her mouth.

Edna let out her sarcastic, trademark laugh. "Yeah, right," she said, rolling her eyes. "You might be an old man, but I'm an old woman, and age always looks good on men." She looked down at her breasts, frowning at them in disgust. "On women, however…" She spread her hands over her breasts. "Well, you see the effects of them now…"

Seymour raised a questioning eyebrow at her, his admiring gaze traveling down her body. "All I see is smart, sexy woman in her prime, and I love her with every fiber in my being." he said, grimacing. "Man, that sounded corny, even to me."

Giggling, Edna flung her arms over Seymour's shoulders. "I didn't think it was corny at all." She gave him a full kiss on the mouth. "You always did know just what to say."

Groaning, Seymour flinched away from her, wincing in pain.

Afraid she had hurt him, Edna pulled away from him, giving him a concerned look. "Are you all right?" she asked, examining his face "I didn't hurt you, did I?"

Seymour shook his head. "No," he said, and his chin sagged against his chest, his jowls slackening. "I'm all right. It's just my back, is all."

Edna rubbed his back. "Here, let me see," she said, sliding her hand under his shirt. "You don't care if I look, do you?

Seymour shook his head, biting his lip to keep from crying out.

Inching the shirt up his back, she eased it up over his head, being careful not to rub the sweater too hard against the numerous scars crisscrossing all across his back. "Oh, honey, I'm so sorry," she said, her eyes widening in horror. "I didn't know they had hurt you this bad." Tracing his spine with her hands, her fingers brushed against one of the scars in particular, causing Seymour to flinch at her touch. "I'm sorry." She pulled her hand back. "I didn't mean to." She shook her head, beginning to cry again. "You never did tell me what happened in Vietnam."

Seymour gripped her hand. "That's all right," he said. "You didn't mean to." His shoulders slumped, making Edna feel even guiltier. "I don't care to tell you what happened in Vietnam."

"You don't have to," Edna said, shaking her head. "If it's too much, you don't have to."

Seymour set his mouth into a thin, stubborn line. "No," he said, in, what was, for him, a rare moment of persistent determination. "I'm going to tell you the whole truth, from the beginning to end, and I'm not going to leave anything out."

Edna patted his hand. "Good for you, Seymour," she said, lifting his hand up to her lips to kiss it. "I'm proud of you." She lowered his hand back onto his lap, winking at him. "I knew you could do it."

Encouraged, Seymour was able to go on. "Well, I'll tell you, then," he said, looking over his shoulder at her. "That scar you just touched I got from the stitches they put in me after they took the bullet out me in Vietnam…" Gathering up his newfound courage, he swallowed, making Edna realize how hard this must be for him, recalling the horrors of war. "Most of the other scars I got from when then they captured and tortured me in a Vietnamese prison camp, which is where I got these." He shrugged his shoulders, which, Edna noticed, for the first time, were lop-sided. "They treated us like animals, for the longest, most hellish eighteen months of my life, Edna." He raked his hand back through his disheveled hair, trembling. "It's indescribable, Edna, the way they treated us. They did the most, unthinkable, despicable things to us…things you never would've imagined a human doing to another human being. They did things to us you wouldn't do to your dog."

"I'm sorry, Seymour," Edna said, not knowing what else to say. "I had no idea…" At a loss for words, Edna just stared at him, her mouth gaped open. There was still one little detail of his story she was still having trouble coming to terms with. "You were shot in the back?" She just couldn't picture the strong, healthy Seymour she knew and loved now in a wheelchair, and he must've been, if what he said was true. "When? How? And how are you not a human vegetable?" Whether from out of pride or fear, this had been one part of his life he had kept from her, and she was going to find out why. After all, if they were to be married, they had to do everything they could to make sure this marriage worked, and that meant keeping no secrets from each other. She hoped Seymour felt the same way. If he didn't, she had fallen in love with the wrong man, and she had been hoping he had been the right one. "After all, if you get shot in the back, your pretty much a cripple for the rest of your life aren't you?" She narrowed her stern gaze at him. "Tell me, Seymour." She hated to act like a bitch, but she wanted answers, and she couldn't think of any other way to get them.

Seymour's cheeks blushed crimson from embarrassment. ""You're going to laugh at me, Edna," he said.

Edna tried to keep a straight face. "I'll try not to," she said, not making any promises, knowing Seymour had an uncanny knack for making her laugh at even the most inappropriate moments.

Seymour took a deep breath. "Okay, then. This is probably a mistake, but since you said you won't laugh, here it goes," he said, letting his breath back out again. "It was at a Bob Hope concert. I was trying to get Joey Heatherton to pull her pants back up -"

Without meaning to, Edna interrupted him. "Joey Heatherton?" she asked, raising a questioning eyebrow at him. "Now that's a name I haven't heard in years." She snorted. "I wonder what ever happened to that old fossil."

Seymour shrugged. "I don't know," he said, shaking his head. "I don't remember much after that. They told me it was one my own men who did it, and to make matters worse, he was drunk. If he hadn't been, it probably never would've happened, but he apologized for it afterwards. There are no hard feelings between us. I haven't seen him since I left Vietnam. I don't even know if he's still alive, and he doesn't even know that I learned to walk again. If he's still alive, as far as he's concerned, I'm still a helpless, useless cripple in a wheelchair."

Edna didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "Oh, Seymour," she said, trying to let Seymour keep what little dignity he had left by doing neither. "Why didn't you tell me?" She had no idea her finance's past life had been so tragic. "And who was the bastard who shot you?"

Seymour closed his eyes in deep thought. "I can't remember," he said, opening his eyes again after a moment. "It's been so long ago…" He clenched his hand into a fist, slamming it down on the bed in frustration. "Dammit! I guess I was too afraid to remember, so I kept it bottled up inside for all of these years, and now I can't even remember the name of the drunken oaf who shot me."

"That's okay," Edna said. "I understand if you can't remember it all. You don't have to. It has been awhile."

Seymour sighed with relief. "Thank you," he said, giving her a grateful look. "I hate it that I can't remember the idiot's name, even if he did cripple me, but I just can't…it's been too long…I'm too old…too tired…" He ran his hand over his creased forehead, hanging his head in shame. "Forgive me, Edna."

"There's nothing to forgive," Edna said, tugging at his arm. "Now, please, go on."

"They did tell me I would never walk again," Seymour said, lowering his rich, baritone voice to a soft whisper. "I was in a wheelchair for years, probably would've been in it longer, if it hadn't been for mother."

Edna blinked in surprise. "Your mother?" she asked, giving him a skeptical look. "What has that hateful old woman ever done to help you?"

Seymour laughed. "Well, you know mother," he said, smiling at her. "After they brought me home, she was insufferable, as you could imagine." Lowering his eyes, he turned away from her. "I guess she couldn't stand the thought of having a cripple for a son." His face fell, going dark. "She yelled at me every day, more than usual, called me the most hurtful names a mother could call her son."

Edna clutched his hand. "Why, that heartless, old hag," she said, extending her arms around his stomach. "I'm so sorry, Seymour."

Seymour dismissed her apology with a wave of his hand. "Don't be," he said, shaking his head. "It wasn't your fault. Besides, like I said, if it hadn't been for mother, I think I would still be in that wheelchair."

"Tell me again how that happened?" she asked, curious to see where this story was going.

"Well, I guess one day I just had enough," Seymour said, smiling at the memory. "I think I got so angry at her I was able to muster up enough strength to get out of the chair." Much to Edna's amusement, he sounded pleased with himself. "She was so shocked she passed out."

Edna threw her head back, cackling with laughter. "Serves the old bitch right," she said, having never before felt so proud of her fiancé. "She had it coming to her, after the way she's treated you all these years."

"Please, Edna, try not to be too hard on my mother," Seymour said. "She has her faults, but I'd be lost without her."

"You know, Seymour, you were starting to turn me on." She tossed her nightgown over her head, shaking her hair loose. "The way you stood up to your mother like that." She pinned him to the bed, holding his arms to his sides. "I thought it was kind of sexy." Hissing at him, she bared her teeth at him in a slow, seductive grin, licking her lips. "Why don't we do it?" She purred with her silk-like voice, rubbing her hand down his heaving chest. "Right here and now?"

"I...I...I...I don't know, Edna...I mean..." Seymour said, stammering.

"I always thought you were cute when you done that, but that's enough talk for now, Seymour." Edna said, sliding her hand down his pants. "Just shut up and kiss me, dammit." Despite his groans, she pressed her lips against his in a lengthy, heartfelt kiss, feeling an intense thrill when he returned it, her arms tingling with goose bumps. Laughing, both of them dove under the covers, their arms and legs tangled around each of their bodies in an inseparable knot of desire.

THE END


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